Tamil Cinema in the Twenty-First Century - Caste, Gender, and Technology Edited by Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas
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Tamil Cinema in the Twenty-First Century Caste, Gender, and Technology Edited by Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas
First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-19901-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-24402-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables x
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgements xiv
Foreword: A refreshing look at Tamil cinema xv
Introduction: Tamil cinema in the twenty-first century:
continuities and changes 1
SELVARAJ VELAYUTHAM AND VIJAY DEVADAS
PART 1
Caste 17
1 Contested narratives: Filmic representations of North Chennai
in contemporary Tamil cinema 19
KARTHIKEYAN DAMODARAN AND HUGO GORRINGE
2 Conscripts of cinema: The dangerous and deviant Third Wave 36
DICKENS LEONARD
3 Being Dalit, being Tamil: The politics of Kabali and Kaala 52
KARTHICK RAM MANOHARAN
PART 2
Gender 67
4 When Madhi dances like Dhanush: Gender representations in
Irudhi Suttru 69
SHAKILA ZAMBOULINGAME2 Conscripts of cinema
The dangerous and deviant Third Wave
Dickens Leonard
This chapter seeks to study a component of popular contemporary Tamil cinema,
especially foregrounding the films that represent Madurai in the first decade of
this century. With a special focus on Kadhal (Love, 2004), Veyil (Torrid Sun,
2006), Paruthiveeran (Cotton Champ, 2007), and Subramaniapuram (2008), it
examines whether, and how, they offer ‘new’ ways to understand contemporary
Tamil and Indian cinema. Such films are often described as part of a ‘New Wave’
(Anand 2005; Sebastian 2008) that successfully produced the ‘new Madurai
genre’ (Hariharan 2011). They definitely are new in that new faces that don Tamil
cinema also dawned with them. They are also new in terms of their realistic and
tragic depiction of violence and caste bigotry in Madurai, though there has been a
critical conduit from earlier films.
Importantly, these films entail, to use a hackneyed term, certain markers of
difference as well. From 2004 onwards, there is a steady but sure failure of hero-
centric mega budget films in Tamil. Krishnan terms this trend as the death of
the ‘type-hero film’, whereas low-budget, award-winning, ‘alternative’ as well as
‘popular’ productions create a new trend in contemporary Tamil cinema (2010A,
6–11). This could be seen as an extension of the ‘nativity films’ of the late 1970s,
where rural contextualisation was treated as an ‘ideological investment centered
on the rurality of its plot-events and roles’ (Kaali 2000, 168–9). In fact, in the
late 1990s, directors such as Bala, Cheran, and Thangar Bachan had made films
that portrayed rustic and marginal lives but relatively ‘alternative and realistic’
depictions. Though many studies have theorised ‘Dravidian cinema’ and there
are also many articles on individual films later, very few scholars have worked on
Tamil cinema after the 1980s, particularly foregrounding caste and criminality in
the Tamil contemporary films (Devadas and Velayutham 2008). This is perhaps
a Third Wave which offers new ways to understand Madurai and contemporary
Tamil cinema.
The new Madurai genre
Madurai is the third-largest city in Tamil Nadu and one of its oldest. In the screen
history of Tamil cinema, Madurai has played an important yet changing role as
a narrative space. The mythological films such as Avaiyaar (1953), PoompuharConscripts of cinema 37
(1964), and Thiruvillaiyadal (1965) depict Madurai as a centre of literary activity
and temple town in the 1950s. In the historical films such as Madurai Veeran
(Madurai Hero, 1957) and Madurayai Meeta Sundara Pandiyan (Sundarapandiyan
Who Freed Madurai, 1978), M.G. Ramachandran acts as the Madurai hero who
secures and protects it as a separate region from external forces. Later ‘Dravidian’
cinema uses Madurai as a narrative space for political articulation. Director
Barathi Raja in the 1980s set Madurai village as an actual rustic space to narrate
his stories. Madurai-based popular films after Devar Magan (Son of a Devar,
1992) predominantly narrate and depict a particular caste culture as the actual
culture of Madurai.1
In the early 2000s, Kadhal, Veyil, Paruthiveeran, and Subramaniapuram set
Madurai as an actual narrative space in their films, where caste and criminal-
ity participate discursively. The representations of the rustic milieu, Madurai
dialect and dress code, folk performances and spectacle spaces, caste articu-
lation, and childhood as a flashback are significant pointers that distinguish
them from other filmic trends. They were at once celebrated as box-office hits
as well as critically acclaimed award-winners.2 These films, therefore, could
be seen as destabilising and critiquing the neat homogeneities that cinemas in
India have hitherto constructed. I do not, however, describe these films as ‘New
Wave’ because the term particularly refers to a global phenomenon on which
there exists a canonical body of work. New Wave as a blanket term refers to
La Nouvelle Vague coined by critics for a group of French film-makers of the
late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian neo-realism and popular Hollywood
cinema.
A New Wave is usually a historical moment within a national cinema. The
most famous example is the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague), essentially
a group of young critics turned film-makers who broke with the past traditions
and made exciting, experimental, and innovating films. Although never a for-
mally organised movement, New Wave film-makers were generally linked by
their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youth-
ful iconoclasm. New Wave is also an example of European art cinema. Many also
engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making
their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative part of a general
break with the conservative paradigm.
New Wave in India is seen as a specific genre which is known for its seri-
ous content, realism, and naturalism, with an eye on the sociopolitical climate
of the times.3 They are specifically regarded as ‘new cinemas’, which are the-
matically different, and they produce ‘micro-narratives’ of the nation – alterna-
tive and minority stories – which are generally excluded by the ‘Bollywood film
representations’ (Devasundaram 2018, 1).4 Since New Wave Indian cinema has a
particular history in India, the term does not qualify to describe the present phe-
nomenon in Tamil cinema as well, even though Kadhal, Veyil, Paruthiveeran, and
Subramaniapuram are ‘offbeat’ and different. In want of a better term, I demar-
cate the selected films as significantly belonging to the Third Wave,5 since Tamil
cinema can be categorised into three waves.38 Dickens Leonard
The two waves and the conscripting Third Wave
Dravidian cinema in the 1960s is the First Wave, where political address, spec-
tator identification, star/fandom, and linguistic reorganisation at a historical
juncture necessitated a new way to understand and conceptualise Tamil cinema
(Baskaran 2009). The First Wave directly contests Indian cinema that ideologi-
cally constructed a ‘national’ audience. The Second Wave refers to a shift in the
relationship between Tamil cinema and Bombay cinema in the 1990s with the
emergence of directors Mani Ratnam and S. Shankar in the context of ‘Mandal,
Mandir and Market’.6 Various studies of these films identify a negotiation for
a new space for the ‘Tamilian’ with respect to the Indian nation-state, as an
entity who is reconfigured onto the global arena (Vasudevan 2000; Prasad 2004;
Rajadhyaksha 2009).7 Such films in a highly globalised context were seen to
work as a conduit between ‘Tamil-ness’ and new trans-regional national elite at
par with its global counterparts. The Second Wave addressed the aesthetic differ-
ences that marked Tamil cinema and aligned its stylistic form closer to the Hindi
cinema. Apparently, two waves of studies on particular films such as Parasakthi
(1952) and Roja (Rose 1992) represent the two waves as a phenomenon distinctly
(Pandian 1992, 2005; Chakravarthy and Pandian 1994; Pandian and Krishnan
2006; Niranjana 1994a, 1994b).
As the Third Wave is marked by the recurrence of dangerous and deviant heroes
and the excess of casteist articulations within Madurai as a visual-narrative space,
it signifies an apparent detour (Leonard 2015). The Third Wave films raise differ-
ent questions to Indian cinema in general and Tamil cinema in particular. The film
narratives, in fact, contest the construction of the homogeneous ‘ethno-specific’
Tamil state/nation. If Dravidian cinema interrupted the ‘Indian’ cinema’s project
of discursively constructing a sense of a national people through the cinematic
medium, the Third Wave offers a different version of the ‘ethno-specific’ Tamil
country. At the same time, it deconstructs the urban, professional, and cosmo-
politan secular-spectatorial address that the Second Wave constructed. Hence, the
Third Wave finds its currency in its critique of the First and Second Waves.
A ‘new’ trend was established by rebel directors such as Barathi Raja,
Bhagyaraj, Balachander, and Balu Mahendra way back in the late 1970s but for
a short period.8 Kaali describes films by the above directors as belonging to the
‘neo-nativity film’ genre, where the hero was reconstituted in the rustic space
(2000, 168–90). This was most probably caused when the film industry that relied
on the star system found itself at a loss as M.G. Ramachandran entered into full-
time party politics. Moreover, during the emergency in India – 18-month time
period from 1975 to 1977 – the political dream of a Tamil nation almost shattered
and the Dravidian parties moved their gear into electoral politics.
Thus, these new genres had already contested the earlier Dravidian iconog-
raphy. Kaali posits that one of the salient features of the ‘neo-nativity film’ is
a certain displacement of a narrational agency from the hero to the village as a
collective actant, where the portrayal of the village changed and there was greater
care for verisimilitude and details. Shooting in actual exterior locations becameConscripts of cinema 39
a dominant film-making practice during this time. But this phenomenon is only
seen as an intervention after which the star system was revived by Rajinikanth
and Kamal Haasan.
The Third Wave, however, particularly deals with criminality and caste, and
they could be categorically described as Con-Scripts: ‘Con’ as in convicts and
also conned; ‘scripts’, of course, refer to film script/scripting. The term ‘con-
script’ refers to someone who is compulsorily enrolled or drafted for service. The
phrase ‘conscripts of civilization’ (Diamond 1974: 151) refers to the ‘primitive’
cultures that engage in the ‘civilization’ project becoming ‘conscripts of civiliza-
tion, not volunteers’ (Asad 1992, 333). But such cinematic representations also
reveal the ambiguity and ambivalence with regard to prevalent notions of caste
and criminality (Dhareshwar 1993). Perhaps, the criminal and caste subjects also
become, in and through these representations, ‘conscripts of modernity’ (Scott
2004, 98–131), who are coerced into civilisation but continue as corrosive objects
and agents (Ansari 2001). Could identities and spaces marked by caste and crime
become conscripts of modern cinema itself?
Conscripted representations were indeed inaugurated in the early 2000s by
director Bala who arguably ‘re-wrote the Tamil hero’ (‘Exclusive’ 2009). He is
acknowledged to have initiated an avant-garde trend in characterisation, spatial
representation, and film narrative. All his films depicted tragic ends with deviant
characters as protagonists, such as a college rowdy who goes mad (Sethu 1999), a
henchman who is killed by his mother (Nandha 2001), the relationship between a
scavenger, a cannabis dealer and a small-time crook (Pithamagan 2003), and an
agora (Naan Kadavul 2009).
It can be argued that the Third Wave films, like Kadhal, Veyil, Paruthiveeran,
and Subramaniapuram, can be seen as an extension of the ‘neo-nativity film’ as
well as director Bala’s trend in contemporary Tamil cinema. The recurrence of
conscripted heroes and the excess of casteist articulations within Madurai as a nar-
rative space raise specific questions seeking different interpretations. Theoretical
categories such as Indian citizen-spectator, secular-modern identification, and
the Dravidian/Tamil heroic subject have all undergone considerable alteration in
these films.
Thus, the Third Wave indicates a momentous intervention in understanding
Indian cinema in general and Tamil cinema in particular. With the release of
Kadhal, Veyil, Paruthiveeran, and Subramaniapuram, not only is there a slow but
an absolute death of the ‘type-hero’ in Tamil cinema, but these films also actualise
the Madurai region as a cinematic imaginary through its authenticity markers, like
dialect and cultural practices explicitly, which earlier films constructed as a ‘trope’
(Krishnan 2008, 140). The characterisation and setting in the Third Wave films
naturalise the markers as actuality. For instance, Kadhal and Subramaniapuram
open with shots that contextualise the screen space as Madurai. Shot sequences
depict the city’s landmarks as the credits run before the story begins. The narra-
tive space is contextualised in actuality by depicting the consensual notions of
culture and through a loud display of cultural markers like dress, food, and, most
significantly, the dialect.40 Dickens Leonard
Beyond the ‘type-hero’ and the ‘neo-nativity’ film
Tamil cinema devised the ‘type-hero’ as one of the popular images in its screen
history.9 Usually, popular Tamil cinema is male hero-centric. A greater part of the
frames centre around the hero. The ‘type-hero’ substantiates heroism in popular
film narratives. ‘Hero-ness’ is ideally composed and influenced by the sociopo-
litical as well as the historicity of a genre (Maderya 2010, 1–6). Usually, ‘hero-
ness’ in popular Tamil movie is demonstrated through the hero’s ‘modern’ as
well as ‘traditional’ attitude towards women, education, and exhibitions of physi-
cal prowess. These qualities are usually idealised through contrast with the vil-
lain and the sidekick. Worship of the mother, care for his sister, and faithfulness
towards his wife are intrinsic to the ideal image. The ability to physically van-
quish the wrongdoer and protect the family is a crucial aspect of the hero-ideal.
This reminds us of the folk heroes of the countryside who are remembered from
generation to generation through popular heroic ballads.10 This reconfiguration of
the rustic hero is not a new phenomenon in Tamil cinema.
By the 1970s–1980s, the male protagonist, in the neo-nativity films, evidenced
arrested development, mental inadequacy, and physical failure; and he needed to
be supported by a dominant female character (Kaali 2000). The heroic subjects
in Kadhal, Veyil, Paruthiveeran, and Subramaniapuram are different representa-
tions; perhaps they are extensions of the neo-native rustic hero. Like the neo-
native heroes, they offer diverse identifications to the audience, as they are not, of
course, citizen-spectator identifications. They are unlike Roja’s urbane hero – a
representative of the ‘Indian secular’ – with whose desire the state’s interest and
the Hindu patriarchal culture coincide.11 The heroic subjects, like the neo-nativity
heroes, are dysfunctional ‘non-heroic’ representations.
However, their tragic portrayals symbolise a site of fragmentation of the homog-
enised citizen-subject identity (that went into construction), which is particularly
intercepted by markers of caste and criminality. Murugan (Barath) in Kadhal,
Murugesan (Pasupathy) in Veyil, Veera (Karthi) and Sevvazhai (Saravanan) in
Paruthiveeran, and Azhagar (Jai) and Parama (Sasi Kumar) in Subramaniapuram
are exemplary characters, who are beyond type or neo-native heroes. As they are
represented as dangerous and deviant and their portrayals raise different ques-
tions, they can arguably belong to another genre as well. Beyond the typical and
the neo-native heroes, they act as conscripts of cinema; and they question specta-
torial identification and the processes by which not only individual subjectivities
are constituted, but also entire communities are made and unmade.
Dangerous and deviant heroes as conscripts of cinema
The heroes of the selected films, namely, Murugan – Kadhal, Murugasen – Veyil,
Veera – Paruthiveeran, and Azhagar and Parama – Subramaniapuram, are
emblematic of deviance and danger. They are rowdy sheeters, who are unem-
ployed and vagrant, at once getting into disputes when getting drunk. Their bodies
are marked by ‘excess’ that resist normative transformation into citizen-subjects.Conscripts of cinema 41
They are also subjects where the camera locks caste into their identities, especially
when their romantic escapades end in violent trauma. Their representations pro-
vide the citizen-spectator a dangerous/deviant ‘other’ as an identification to (dis)
engage with. Through exclusion, they signify the reconfiguration of the Madurai
hero as a conscripted subject. Hence, as outlaws, their deaths and murders are
unaccountable by law. Their murders are mutilations which erase them from the
cinematic social-imaginary.
In Kadhal, Murugan is central to the romance plot. However, the story is spe-
cifically about his failed aspirations. The progression of the narrative action is
also the regression towards his breakdown. Murugan becomes insane at the end of
the movie. His degeneration into deviance is signified by loss: devoid of a home,
without familial and friendly relationships, lack of material support, and plummet
from a social standing. Murugan’s earlier image of a diligent mechanic in charge
of a shop, who is respected in the town for his work ethic, is in stark contrast to the
latter one into which he plunges. The loss of supportive spaces – familial, mate-
rial, and social – is critical to his devolution into dysfunctionality.
Murugan, son of a ‘lower’-caste widow, lives with his mother in a slum, works
as a mechanic but falls for an ‘upper’-caste girl. This would problematise the
caste-ridden structures in Madurai. The movie, however, portrays that this yearn-
ing when realised in the city loosens the shackles of caste ascription. A glimpse of
this vision is evident when Murugan and Aishwarya get married in Chennai city.
Murugan’s aspiration receives support from the displaced, mansion-dwelling,
working-class collective in the city despite caste/class differences. The collective
support in Chennai is in stark contrast to the collective opposition in Madurai.
The movie depicts a spatial binary on screen – Chennai as the urban pedestal of
‘modern’ governance and Madurai as its ‘other space’, where caste is produced as
a spectacle (Leonard 2015).
Unlike Murugan who is devoid of any collective in Madurai, Chennai city
offers a working-class collective for his friend Stephen (Sukumar). Even when
Stephen comes to Madurai, he is a fragment of the ‘modern-economic-urbane’
marker who is embodied by ‘branded’ shirts, pants, and goggles. His demeanour
symbolises a remarkable/marketable difference from Murugan in Madurai, who is
marked by dirt, greased outfits, overgrown nails, and unruly hair. Though Stephen
as a hawker exemplifies incessant industriousness in the city, just like Murugan as
a mechanic in Madurai, his subjectivity is mutually constructed and mediated by
the urban, displaced, working-class collective, who then go on to help Murugan
and Aishwarya at times of violent crisis.
The individual aspirations of a poor, ‘lower’-caste youth are particularly razed
by dominant caste agents of power in Madurai. The absolute degeneration of
Murugan – the hero – into madness is depicted as an effect of this. The decisive
moment of this erasure, in the movie, is the scene where the dominant caste col-
lective accuses Murugan and Aishwarya of transgressing the caste boundaries.
The fact that the heroic subject is made mentally insane through the articulation
of caste bigotry is an important facet to understand the problems of spectator
identification/citizen-subject. Murugan’s deviance is structurally located in his42 Dickens Leonard
caste status according to the cinematic apparatus. Hence, his caste-located body
becomes a conscript of cinema.
Murugesan, in Veyil, is an extension of Murugan. He is a prodigal son of the
working-class, yet dominant intermediary caste, father Sivanandy Devar (Ravi
Mariya). As an adolescent, Murugesan falls in love with Thalaivar (MGR’s cin-
ematic image) cinema. Later, as an adult, he falls in love with a girl outside his
caste. On both occasions, he is opposed vehemently by the dominant members
of the village/society. As a runaway kid, it is the cinema theatre – the ‘modern’
entertainment space – that becomes his alternative home. Working as a projec-
tionist, the theatre at once stands for ‘the smallest parcel’ of his world as well as
the totality of the world which is projected there.
Murugesan’s aspirations were to earn money and return home to prove his
family that he has not wasted his life. However, he becomes a conscripted sub-
ject when he returns to his family after many years. As a testimony of failure,
Murugesan is considered a deviance – a crisis in the patriarchal/casteist set-up –
as he had emasculated his role as the eldest son of the family. Murugesan is a
binary of his younger brother Kathir (Barath), who single-handedly runs an adver-
tisement agency and becomes the backbone of the family. Kathir supports his
sisters to study and is successful in his romance. In comparison to Murugesan, he
serves as the popular ideal hero of Tamil cinema.
However, Murugesan narrates the story and is therefore central to the film
narrative. His failure as a son, brother, and lover is a critique of the responsi-
ble, family man as the heroic subject. His character embodies deviance in the
‘modern’ familial set-up as he swerves from the consensual norm. He is dis-
respected by his father, misunderstood by his sisters, and displaced inside the
family. Murugesan fails to resuscitate the roles he lost as a deviant subject. Only
through his death, the family recognises/relocates his place within the home.
At the movie’s end, he positions himself, through his death/erasure, as a ‘lost’
member of the family in the death anniversary poster. The fact that the family’s
patriarch Sivanandy Devar recognises Murugesan after his death is probably
because of the sacrificial element that is implicit in his erasure. Murugesan is
not necessarily remembered because he is killed as a ‘dysfunctional’ member of
the family, but his death is a sacrifice which saved Kathir, his brother, the sole
breadwinner of the family. That is, perhaps, more important than his erasure
itself.
Interestingly, Murugesan’s deviance is centred on his lack of control over
his pleasures and instinct. He seems to give way to his instinctual drives right
from his young age. For instance, as a young boy, he prefers to play bambaram12
along with his friends and then sell goat’s blood, which is his errand. He bunks
school for a show at the cinema house; he gets down from the lorry, on the way to
Madras, later Chennai, when he sees Thalaivar’s poster near a cinema theatre; and
he decides to have consensual pre-marital sex with his lover during work hours
at the theatre. In all these critical moments of the narrative, Murugesan loses con-
trol over his instinctual desires. Loss of control over pleasure in the ‘modern’
spaces – school and workplace (cinema theatre) – steers Murugesan’s conscriptedConscripts of cinema 43
character towards his death. The representation of Murugesan as the narrator of
the story is a critique of the popular Tamil hero.
However, Veera’s (Paruthiveeran) conscription is marked by his lawless atti-
tude and excessive violence. His aspiration, in today’s world, serves as a critique
of the ‘modern’ citizen-subject and the danger it implies. He wishes to be a rowdy
in Madras city under the vigilant lens of the media against and within the ‘modern’
judiciary-legal code. The criminality and violence, that he is part of, challenge the
police. It is not contained by it. In fact, Paruthiyur exemplifies decentralised des-
potism. The articulation of caste bigotry by the dominant members in Paruthiyur
makes him a defying ‘dangerous individual’ who is justified to be killed. His uncle
Kazhuvathevan (Ponvannan) despises him for being an offspring of an inter-caste
marriage. The markers of a criminal, as well as an inter-caste orphan, make him
excluded within the village. Veera is a doubly marked figure. He is represented as
a conspicuous, inappropriate figure cast out by juridico-legal codes of the modern
state as well as by the normative cultural codes of the village.
For instance, under the surveillance of a battery of police, Veera enters the
screen dramatically. Amidst drum beats, clad in white dhoti and shirt, with the
ash mark on his forehead, he comes dancing to tunes completely engrossed until
he is identified and stopped by the police. He is inspected thoroughly. His attire
is soiled; his face and mane are smeared with colours. His façade is transformed,
and he is ‘re-signified’. As if trying to play according to the re-signified image,
he attempts murder at the village festival. Dirtied and knife-held, Veera performs
his act violently in front of the village gathering. The villagers accuse the mere
presence of his body of making the festive occasion in the village vulnerable to
violence.
Veera is ‘dysfunctionally’ dangerous. He is not a productive member of the
family or the village community. He is depicted as a burden and a danger to the
village community due to his violent and criminal acts. Veera’s state of being
is perhaps linked to the mark he bears. His mother’s tribe had the stain of a de-
notified past, that of a criminal tribe’s mark. Veera ascribes the identity of a crimi-
nal who is a habitual offender according to the law. He is socially ousted by the
dominant members of the village. The ‘Criminal Tribes Act’ (1871) was extended
to the Madras Presidency in 1911. Later, it was repealed. The former ‘criminal
tribes’ were de-notified, and the act was replaced as the ‘Habitual Offenders Act’
(1952) of the Government of India. The former ‘criminal tribes’ became habitual
offenders in the eyes of the state. The movie significantly documents the scenarios
and mindsets left behind by the act in rural Tamil Nadu.
Veera’s body, other than being violent and lawless, is also significantly a
marker of caste defiance. Defiance and deviance are overlapped in the representa-
tion of Veera as a dangerous, conscripted individual. Veera’s inter-caste status is
portrayed as a significant troublemaker to the village collective. Being an orphan/
criminal/inter-caste, he is seen at the site of liminality. He is expunged from the
caste society and juridico-legal code while being marked through it. As an out-
law, he is excluded from the protection of the law. As an inter-caste, he is located
outside the caste structures.44 Dickens Leonard
Azhagar and Parama (Subramaniapuram) are conscripted heroes too. They are
seen as wastrels by their family members. Azhagar’s mother reprimands him for
not working and earning like others. Parama is disliked by his brother’s fam-
ily. They are mired by a passion towards violence, chivalry, and arrogance. As
henchmen, they are used by politicians and criminals. In due course, they are
betrayed and murdered. Azhagar and Parama in Subramaniapuram exemplify as
dangerous rowdy sheeters. They are referents of the most hardened and desper-
ate criminals whose record is kept in a police station. As an inappropriate figure
in the Indian modern urban space, they represent the ‘reified, estranged figure of
modernity’ (Dhareshwar and Srivatsan 1996, 201–31).
They are also lumpen figures – the subhuman ‘other’ from whom the global
middle class differentiates oneself.13 The movie portrays that they are present due
to the criminalisation of politics. Defined by the law and society as dangerous
individuals, they are marked by their ‘excessive’ bodies that do not discorporate.
They are present in spaces that are always and already criminalised. They are a
threat to the upper caste/middle-class, familial/social space. Hence, they are wiped
out from the social-imaginary. Though Azhagar and Parama are all functionally
able bodied, they perish to hatred, revenge, and betrayal in the gory drama, while
Dumka – a differently abled orphan – limps to ‘functionality’ on screen.
The village collective is not a homogeneous, bound entity. Fissures infest the
village, even as violence is often masked and anonymous. For instance, the ‘pro-
fane’ henchmen of Subramaniapuram, in anonymity, direct their vengeance on
the committee chairman on a celebratory night at the village fest for his ‘noble’
hypocrisy. And they pick up a bloody fight at the cinema theatre, which is imme-
diately prone to group clashes. It is never a homogeneous fan collective. It is an
excellent example to understand that though the village stands as a collective, the
fissures and differences constitute it in the Third Wave – especially when danger-
ous and deviant heroes conscript Madurai.
Madurai in the Third Wave
Madurai provides meaning as an ‘Other space’ (Foucault 1986), as these films
contain the expressive bodies of subaltern/lower caste and rowdies as conscripts
within yet outside. It is a spectacle space that signifies decentralised despotism,
yet these films imply that the familial space ought to be barricaded from the dan-
gerous/deviant individuals who spatially comprise caste and criminality. Hence,
these films constitute an altogether ingenious spectatorial address that contests the
First and Second Waves.
Although these films destabilise dominant spectatorial address, the tragic ends
attempt a shift towards the security of the familial space. Their erasures seem
to recover the lost familial space back to the ‘modern’ Indian state. Though the
films dislocate the domestic, familial space – for instance, the helpless, ‘lower’-
caste Murugan in Kadhal; a displaced, vulnerable Murugesan in Veyil; an orphan/
criminal/inter-caste Veera in Paruthiveeran; and the careless rowdy sheeters in
Subramaniapuram – the deaths relocate the systemic (casteist) structure. They doConscripts of cinema 45
not destabilise the caste order within the narrative space, though the films seem
to have a realist caste critique in its narrative, as they actually express a melodra-
matic mode of address (Chakravarthy 2010, 12–21). The tragic ends of these films
uphold the structure of casteist patriarchy indeed, and they preserve the absolute
control and purity of the familial space in the social-imaginary that it represents. I
extend this hypothesis to reflect that though these films portray caste and criminal
spaces to destabilise them, they indirectly protect them.
For instance, Veyil’s opening scenes depict the villain rearing pigs in a pen.
This is in contrast to Sivanandy Devar’s – Murugesan’s father – vocational space.
He is a butcher who sells goat meat. Though both spaces depict an occupational
association, the cultural connotations they raise are caste–conflict binaries. Veyil
contains villainy at a culturally ‘lower’-caste space. This recurs in Paruthiveeran
as well. Kazhuvathevan supplies goat meat to hotels, wine shops, and festivals.
His domestic space also converts into an occupational space. However, the
Kurathi’s (the Kurava tribe grandmother of Veera) business is stamped by her
outcaste/exterior status. Even the policemen mark the ascribed identity over her
crime. Her domestic space is signified by the presence of a pig pen and gambling
toddy drinkers. Profanity is contained in her space as a contrast to the Oor.
Kazhuvathevan’s business network is depicted as an ‘upper’-caste network.
This is similar to the business and governmental network of Aishwarya’s father
in Kadhal. The actuality of Madurai space appears to be marked by caste iden-
tity in the Third Wave. Paruthiyur and Subramaniapuram as rustic spaces entail
caste purity. In fact, the erasure of the ‘profane’ subjects, from the narrative,
appears to entitle the sacredness of rustic space. For instance, Kurathi lives out-
side Paruthiyur, on the outskirts, where the illicit toddy business happens. Kadhal
Murugan as an outcaste is ideally enclosed-off in his actual presence at the Cheri,
where his house is coded with an ambedkarite blue. Thus, he is thrashed like a
stray dog in the outskirts. Kurathi is also killed outside the Oor, and Veera’s
parents are killed in an accident on the outskirts. Veera is beaten to death at the
village periphery. Azhagar and Parama are murdered outside Subramaniapuram.
The Third Wave apparently constructs the defying ‘profane’ subjects in out-
caste spaces, outside the Oor and Puram of Madurai. In fact, they eliminate
the dangerous subjects and construct the rustic space as a caste ‘pure’ space.14
Apparently, these films ‘implement Manu dharma treatment to the caste defy-
ing subjects in these spaces’ (Shrirasa 2010; Chandran 2010). For instance, the
women protagonists actively desire the ‘lower’-caste men in these select films,
while they intervene with casteist patriarchy. Yet, in their individual struggles,
they fail to the dominant structures of the caste collective. The films represent
them as failures of an individual woman’s aspiration against casteist patriarchy.
The strong, expressive women portrayals intercede with patriarchy at moments
only to be erased (Kadhal, Veyil, and Paruthiveeran) or made use of by others
(Subramaniapuram). The films protect the caste purity by repudiating the mixture
of blood between caste-defying individuals. The caste structures within the film
narrative protect the women as sacred objects of caste purity as they repudiate the
women subjects from marrying ‘other/outcaste’ men.46 Dickens Leonard
Cinema participates in this discourse where the sociopolitical structures pro-
tect land and property through caste-marital alliance. The narrative and charac-
terisation do not disturb or displace the dominant caste structures. In fact, they
recover and uphold them. The films offer sympathies and individual rescuers as
a response to this recovery. The camera acts as a cultural apparatus that profess
the security of property through caste marriage alliances. For instance, Murugan
and Aishwarya; Murugesan and Thangam; Veera and Muthazhagu; Azhagar and
Tulasi: their love affairs are punished horrendously. Their tragic ends are bloody
mutilations as they are linked to the articulation of caste norms as an actual culture
in the Madurai genre.15
Conclusion
Murugan, Murugesan, Veeran, Azhagar, and Parama are losers in that they are
portrayed as deviant. They are a constant intrusion to the protection of the caste
spaces. At the moment of their deaths, they are portrayed as unproductive mem-
bers of the family and as dangerous individuals to the social-imaginary. In sum,
it is explicitly caste that makes them ‘dysfunctional’ and felonious. Their deaths
are indicators of terrible violence, and they, as individuals, are outside the pro-
tection of modern law. They are killed by individuals or collectives who are not
particularly accountable to the law. For instance, all the protagonists are killed
or attacked by men from the influential dominant collective. The murders of
Veera, Murugesan, Azhagar and Parama, and Murugan are bloody mutilations.
Murugesan is slashed by knives; Veera is beaten to death; Azhagar and Parama
are betrayed and butchered to death. Their bodies and minds are fragmented.
Though Murugan is trounced, his life is spared and he goes insane. They are de-
figured and erased from the secular-modern ‘Indian’ social-imaginary.
However, the Third Wave heroes are not unlikely and situational heroes, who
are deviant because of certain deficiencies, be they physical, psychological, or
sociocultural. More likely, the Third Wave heroes’ deviance is defiance itself in
that the spectator-subject is given to understand that they are not amenable to
civilisation and citizenship. They are represented as vile conscripts or infestations
whose unruly acts are well within the purview of the state while they themselves
remain beyond its pale, unworthy of salvation. This spatial discourse, however,
dangerously justifies the reproduction of caste through contemporary cinematic
cultures and has indeed impressed upon a wave of films on Madurai in the early
twenty-first century. ‘Madurai-formula films’ are also ‘deleterious consequences
of a culture that emphasizes masculine caste pride and celebrates caste honor and
violence’ (Damodaran and Gorringe 2017).
In other words, they are left alone to protect themselves against the carnage.
Though they embody excessive caste and crime, they remain as ‘no bodies’
when defined by caste norms and legal apparatus. They are excluded as well
as included by the same norm. As heroic subjects, they pose a challenge to the
narrative of the citizen-subject. The films provide the citizen-spectator a danger-
ous/deviant ‘other’ as an identification to disengage with. Through exclusion,Conscripts of cinema 47
they signify the reconfiguration of the Madurai hero as a conscripted heroic
subject.
Indeed, while the ‘new Madurai genre’ articulates caste as an ‘other’ of the
Indian modern, it also protects, at the same time, the casteist norms in their recur-
ring narratives. These films reproduce Madurai by reconstituting the conscripted
hero in the caste and criminal spaces (Leonard 2015). The depiction of caste
norms, as the actual culture of Madurai, in these films goes on to constitute the
common sense of caste (Damodaran and Gorringe 2017). The ‘othering’, thus, is
based on this overlap, so much so, murders, honour killings, political caste alli-
ances, statements, and activities that are considered normalised and generalised
seem to be produced through cinematic cultures. However, the spectre of caste in
the twenty-first-century Tamil cinema is slowly but powerfully exorcised by the
relentless efforts of directors such as Pa. Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj, who counter
these waves to rescript the emergence of a ‘Casteless Collective’.
Plot summaries
Kadhal (Love, 2004) is a tragic-romance about an inter-caste love affair that is
set in Madurai city. The film captures the travails of runaway lovers and their
‘secured’ return homeward. The narrative constructs Madurai as an entity steeped
in caste conflict and violence. The slang and cultural practices portrayed differen-
tiate this film from other contemporary films. Kadhal also attempts to naturalise
itself by proclaiming that it is no make-believe but a real story. This naturalisation
is also more effective as a new cluster of actors, unfamiliar and unknown, add
‘authenticity’ to their roles – reportedly, some of them were just picked off the
street.
Veyil (Torrid Sun, 2006) is a tragic-romance set in a village near Madurai.
The protagonist and narrator Murugesan highlights the historic changes that have
undergone over a period of time in the place he lives in. Unlike other popular
films, this one distinctively presents the narrative of a wretched, prodigal son’s
life through a confessional mode. The film presents Madurai as a bloody locale
of violent business deals. The police and systems of justice are shockingly absent
from the whole narrative. The experiments in the narrative mode, such as child-
hood memories as flashbacks and ‘unusual’ characterisation, mark this film as
different from others. The film depicts cinema theatre as a spectacle space.
Paruthiveeran (Cotton Champ, 2007) is a tragic-romance set in Paruthiyur, a
village near Madurai. The film portrays the love affair between the daughter of
the village chief – a dominant caste patriarch – and her cousin, a seasoned rowdy
who is of mixed birth. The village is represented as a space of caste/clan violence,
bigotry, and brash slipshod indolence. The folk performances within the film are
famously rendered in a ‘documentary’ mode, further signifying the rustic differ-
ence from an urban lifestyle. Combined with the flashback narrative mode, it is an
excellent example of ‘ethnographic realism’.
Subramaniapuram (2008) is a racy thriller that recounts the tragic encounters
of three young rowdy sheeters. The film depicts the Madurai town of the 1980s and48 Dickens Leonard the party politics that individuals and families are caught up in. Subramaniapuram portrays the lives of five henchmen who are used by their powerful acquaintances and friends. The new shades in characterisation of these henchmen clearly dis- tinguish them from the type-heroes earlier popular Tamil films created. Cine-fan culture and village fest recur as spectacle spaces. The narration is predominantly through the flashback mode. Notes 1 Films such as Ghilli (Risk Taker, 2004), Red (2004), Virumaandi (2004), Kadhal (2004), Veyil (2006), Sandaikkozhi (Battle Rooster, 2006), Paruthiveeran (2007), Subramaniapuram (2008), Vennila Kabbadi Kuzhu (White Moon Kabaddi Team, 2009), Goripalayam (2009), and Aadukalam (Playground, 2011). 2 Incidentally, Kadhal and Veyil were produced by the famous director S. Shankar. Balaji Sakthivel and Vasantha Balan worked as assistants in his earlier films. These films were Shankar’s premier productions. Paruthiveeran’s producer K.E. Gnavelraja is related to actor Karthi’s family (Karthi is brother to better-known actor Surya and son to veteran actor Sivakumar). The movie was dropped many times before it was completed, with the aid of its director Ameer Sultan. Subramaniapuram was produced by its director Sasi Kumar. All four films were not produced by big, established production houses but by individuals relatively new to the industry. The economic and production aspect of the ‘New Wave’ trend is an interesting phenomenon to study. Apparently, this is similar to the crisis in the mid-1970s where it manifested at the economic aspect of film production as well. Kaali states that film-making activity went down considerably as the leading production companies experienced considerable setbacks and opted either to close down business or cease active work temporarily. It is also noted that when MGR announced his return to film in the late 1980s, the whole situation had changed so drastically that he had to review his decision and give up his acting profession completely (2000, 169). 3 The films of the likes of Apu Trilogy (Bengali) by Satyajit Ray, Meghe Dhaka Tara (Bengali) by Ghatak, and Do Bigha Zameen (Hindi) by Bimal Roy were the ones which created a wave of new cinema. 4 Devasundaram interestingly distinguishes the new cinemas as indies (2018, 1). Such an argument however cannot hold contiguous because post-1990s, perhaps, ‘Bollywoodization of Indian cinema’ (Rajadhyaksha 2008) has affected all the major film industries. Thus, one may argue that instead of a structural departure from earlier modes of film-making, what we also witness are waves of movement across the time period, and there are multiple responses even within the same industry. 5 Though the phrase ‘Third Wave’ tempts one to reflect on the alternative ‘third front’ in Indian politics, unfortunately I do not use this particular phrase with such a connotation. 6 This refers to the period where the rise of caste and religious movements shifted atten- tion to identity politics as well as to the economic reforms of 1991 that sparked off major debate over the future of state-led development, liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation (Hardgrave and Kochanek 2008, 197). 7 For a detailed account of the three waves, see my article that uses the concept heteroto- pias to analyse the recurrence of spectacle spaces in the construction of Madurai genre and the production of caste in contemporary films (Leonard 2015). 8 Similar films were also made in the other South Indian cinemas. An example is Bharathan in Malayalam, whose films were acclaimed for their ‘realistic’ portrayal of rural life in Kerala and were termed as ‘middle of the road cinema’, which took a middle path between art house and commercial cinema. Some of his early films include Rathi Nirvedam (1978), Thakara (1979), Lorry (1980), Chaamaram (1980), Parankimala (1981), Marmaram (1982), and Ormakkayi (1982).
Conscripts of cinema 49 9 Rajan Krishnan analyses the formation and death of the hero-types in Tamil cinema in a Tamil article. He gives the example of the cinematic image of MGR, which is distinguished as an ‘adventurous type-hero’ from the character hero/actor type, often portrayed by Sivaji Ganesan. Post-1970s, Rajini Kanth signified the ‘angry young man’ action hero image which was an extension of the ‘adventurous type-hero.’ Krishnan concurs that MGR was the most effective representative of the ‘adventurous type-hero’ from 1948 to 1977, and Rajini Kanth as the ‘action type-hero’ dominated the screen from 1984 to 2004 (Krishnan 2010A, 7-11). 10 For instance, Pandian discusses the folk ballads of Muthupattan, Chinnanadan, Chinnathambi, Jambulingam, and Madurai Veeran, to name but a few, who were essen- tially low-caste men, to argue MGR films have appropriated the ballads and reconsti- tuted to construct the hero-ideal (Pandian 1989, 62-68). 11 See the academic debates for a whole year in 1994 on Mani Ratnam’s Roja by Tejaswini Niranjana, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, and MSS Pandian, S.V. Srinivas, and Rustum Bharucha in Economic & Political Weekly. The movie received wide commercial and critical acclaim in 1992 immediately after the Babri Masjid demolition as it grabbed attention of the wider Indian audience. The movie deals with contemporary issues of separatism in Kashmir and wider notions of Indian nationalism. The academics cri- tiqued the constructions the film posed to the questions: who is an Indian? What defines him/her? And what is the ‘state’ of the Indian nation? 12 Bambaram is a game played by spinning tops in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It is also known as Lattu in Urdu. The game is more common amongst the boys. 13 The term lumpen refers to the category lumpenproletariat which is used in Marxian social theory. It situates the figure outside any social semiosis of class. A lumpen is precisely one whose relationship to money is unmediated by any value, any bonds of class solidarity, or ties of community (Stallybrass 1990, 65-94). 14 Valentine Daniel refers to Oor as the sacred geographical space marked by the temples of a village. The term Oor is defined in a person-centred manner: a place is named and referred to according to the people who populate it. Oor is where higher castes live, and therefore it is considered pure and respectable in contrast to a ‘colony’ or cheri (1987, 63-94). 15 Widespread criticism on these films appears in Tamil little magazines. For instance, Chandran comes down heavily on these films for being casteist. He equates these films to those of Mani Ratnam, Sankar, Kamal Hassan, and Selvaraghavan for its ideological currency (2010). Shrirasa analyses that how in recent filmic represen- tations, Madurai comes to stand to signify Devar caste culture as the normative culture of Tamil Nadu. Apparently, he also observes that many producers and direc- tors belong to the Devar community in the Tamil film industry, which is based in Chennai (2010). References Anand, S. 2005. ‘Politics, Tamil Cinema Eshtyle.’ Outlook India, 30 May. Ansari, M.T., ed. 2001. Secularism, Islam and Modernity: Selected Essays of Alam Khudmuri. New Delhi: Sage. Asad, Talal. 1992. ‘Conscripts of Western Civilization?’ In: C. Gailey Griner (ed.), Dialectical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Stanley Diamond. Vol. 1. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. Baskaran, S. Theodore. 2009. History Through the Lens: Perspectives on South Indian Cinema. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. Chakravarthy, Venkatesh, and M.S.S. Pandian. 1994. ‘More on ‘Roja’.’ Economic and Political Weekly 29(11): 642–644.
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